OMG, are you like totes ready to look at 35 pictures showcasing every square inch of our nursery? No? That sounds like pure hell? Well, you came to the right place.
As I mentioned a few months ago in my "things I've learned in my 30s" post (you do take copious notes and remember everything I've ever written, right?), I don't do decorating. In my 20s, I was really envious of this skill that all my friends seemed to have where they could just look at an empty room and envision a way to make it beautiful. I was eagerly waiting for when this adult trait would kick in for me. It took me years to realize that, like any talent, it's not something that suddenly kicks in, you either have it or you don't, and I don't.
We both considered it well worth our time to work long hours at second jobs to save up to go on a cruise last summer. But we've have a hand me down table for almost ten years that looks its age, and have no intention of shelling out to replace it while it's still standing. I'm writing this blog post from a chair we got from Craig's List for $1, which met our #1 qualification of "comfortable".
 |
| I might not have a Pinterest - worthy nursery, but all the baby clothes are organized by size!
|
Full disclosure - I wrote this post like two weeks ago but thought of other things to say since then. I don't have enough on my mind to waste a pre-written blog post when I can make one up based on my life being slightly less mundane that day.
If you come over, you're not going to see a beautifully designed, perfectly coordinated living space. You'll see some pictures on the wall from 2009 that I kept meaning to update but now I figure I might as well wait for the baby to photograph. Likewise, if you stop by unexpectedly, you're going to see several days worth of mail piled up on the dining room table, a clean load(s) of laundry in the living room waiting to be folded, and a bunch of random junk on the coffee table like Advil, a stapler, and stamps (just what I'm seeing right now). It's also about to be 100% overtaken with baby stuff, and later on, toys and kid stuff. I know some parents want to keep all that contained and still live in a nice house, and I definitely understand why. Personally, I know that things will look like Toys R Us exploded around here and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
In fact, here's what we're dealing with prior to the kid even arriving.
 |
| He needs ALL THE OPTIONS for where to hang out (at least 3 more are unpictured). |
 |
| His toys before either of us have ever set foot in a toy store. |
 |
| In case he comes out of the womb eating solid foods. |
 |
| Ready to rush to the hospital! |
It doesn't really matter that I can't decorate because another thing I learned was not to waste time with sub-par people, so even though most of my friends do live in Pinterest - worth, clutter free houses (at least in my opinion), anyone I invite over isn't going to judge, so it doesn't concern me (anymore). If eventually we decide where we want to live when we grow up and actually buy a place, maybe I'll make more of an attempt, but we do live in the age of Pinterest so I can just find something that looks nice and easy and copy it, or just ask one of my many decorating savvy friends to help me and bake them something delicious as a reward.
Anyway, this was supposed to be about the nursery. I was slightly excited to decorate that room, which is something I've never experienced. We thought an owl theme would be nice, but other than pinning some owl themed boys rooms and registering for owl sheets, we didn't really take it any further. Also I failed at even that, because the owl sheets don't even fit. Still, I really love how it looks, and I can brag about it like crazy because I had nothing to do with it. My husband has been working all summer on it, and everything there in is a result of his hard work.
Originally, it was a "guest room", but that's in quotes because it's not exactly Monica Geller's vision of a guest room with a beautiful bed and an antique desk where guests can write notes about how beautiful the guest room is. It was more like we had a bed (ok, futon) in there, but we also shoved all the crap that we had accumulated but didn't know what else to do with in there.
 |
| Obviously this was well after all the baby stuff began to move in. |
Believe it or not, these before pictures don't even really capture how bad it was, because they were taken after Eric had already moved a bunch of junk out. They were also obviously after we had already received a lot of baby hand me downs.
Now, it looks like this.
 |
| All three of the outfits on the bookcase are now in the hospital bag. Just in case. |
 |
| Eric did the closet like that to surprise me! |
 |
| The light is not as bright as it appears, I swear. |
Just the fact that it's painted something other than builder grade nasty "white", has curtains, and furniture that was bought brand new makes it by far our nicest room. It's ideal for me because it looks really pretty, in my opinion, and I put forth very minimal effort for that to happen. Basically I registered for stuff and folded the clothes and put them in the dresser.
I do think it might be fun to get a big boy room ready in a few years when he is old enough to have his own interests and help pick things out.
And that's the story of the nursery.
Where does your house fall on the scale of decorating? 10 is a house tour would get hundred of pins, 1 is me.
